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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23466013">shaky bow, steady my hand</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/enlaurement24/pseuds/enlaurement24'>enlaurement24</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Twosetviolin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anxiety, Comfort, Crying, Friendship, Jealousy, M/M, i love you Mrs.Yang, it's fluffy don't let it fool you, platonic, some bad words</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 16:15:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,043</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23466013</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/enlaurement24/pseuds/enlaurement24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Eddy cries a lot, cries easy, always has. Brett doesn't own one shirt that Eddy hasn't cried into.</p><p>(Brett manages everything poorly, Eddy's heap of undiluted feelings as well as his own.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eddy Chen &amp; Brett Yang, Eddy Chen/Brett Yang</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>135</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>shaky bow, steady my hand</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Brett is maybe a teensy tiny bit friend jealous. Not in the freaky, girlfriend possessive, insecure way, not entirely, but enough that he makes up an actually convincing excuse to avoid attending Eddy's performance in the workshop at the con that week. It's not that he always goes anyway. And he's spent a ridiculous amount of energy on Eddy's new friends, shared now, so he isn't exactly unwelcome there.</p><p>It's just.</p><p>Eddy is playing with Alex.</p><p>And of course Eddy had to be weirdly popular in his year with his overwhelming musicality and his dumb jokes and worrying openness, but Brett feels cheated still. They'd both agreed on one goal, to get as good as possible on the violin and he waited a whole year for Eddy, dutifully practicing, spending every bit of time away from the con together, deflecting any chance of having anything more than acquaintances. So he kept his frustration close as he charmed his way through over more than half of the first-years, easy and smooth and exhausting under Eddy's need for approval. Brett doesn't care for any of them and he hates to think too long about what he's actually doing.</p><p>Alex though. Brett does have a number of Alex-shaped emotions.</p><p>Alex makes Eddy laugh whole bodied, his ugly, belly slapping laugh, Alex hugs Brett casually now, warm and true, Alex is on his sofa most of the time, squished between them, stealing sips of Brett's bubble tea, falling asleep on Eddy's shoulder.</p><p>Alex is a genuinely good dude and Brett is fed up with him enough that he lies to Eddy just so he won't have to hear them play together.</p><p>Naturally, Alex calls him immediately after the workshop ends, just as Brett hit play on Spirited Away at home, mildly and mysteriously unhappy. He sounds distressed the way he never is, voice high and awkward.</p><p>'Brett! Hiiii, look uh, you might want to check up on Eddy? I know you said you need to work on that orchestral piece you have coming up, sorry, I just-' he cuts himself off, sounds almost chocked.</p><p>'It's fine, did anything happen? Isn't Eddy with you?'</p><p>'Yeah no, he left. We fucked up, dude... any legato he had ended up being ricochet. I don't get why, it's just the workshop.' There's a hint of guilt in that. Shaky bow isn't something a pianist would ever understand, the public shame of it, so Brett lets himself enjoy the higher ground for just a second, right before his stomach turns leaden with worry.</p><p>Alex says 'it's probably nothing, you know how he gets' and Brett hangs up before he can be fully offended. He's off his ass, dressed in seconds. Half out the door, just in time to slam into Eddy right on his steps. He sways, noodle-like, so Brett grabs him by the front of his shirt, clutches the door frame with his other hand to keep them both upright, pulls him inside and throws him on the sofa, goes to make lavender tea.</p><p>There's tear tracks and sniffles when he returns. Eddy makes to explain himself, opens his mouth but Brett only waves him off, says 'yeah, Alex called, I know'.</p><p>Eddy cries a lot, cries easy, always has. Brett doesn't own one shirt that Eddy hasn't cried into. He takes him by the hand, wraps his fingers one by one around his cup, huge and offensively yellow, sits down close enough that they're pressed together from shoulder to knee. Brett doesn't own one shirt that Eddy hasn't cried into because there wasn't one time, since they first met, that Eddy didn't come to cry into Brett's arms.</p><p>And it really must be his darkest hour, he takes gasping breaths as he burns himself on the tea, drinks half and sets it down on the coffee table, he picks his legs off the floor, turns on the sofa enough that he can bend his knees against the back of it, comes down to Brett's lap, hugs him tight and urgent by the middle. Brett is glad he isn't ticklish with Eddy's raw sobbing against his belly. He's done this so many times, it's heavy still.</p><p>Brett pets him slowly, pushes his sweaty fringe away from his forehead, presses at his shoulder hard and deliberate, enough to maybe ground him. He remembers falling over when he was fourteen, glass bottle breaking in his hands because Eddy didn't think he'd really bite the concrete if he were only jokingly tripped, uncoordinated as he was and is. His mum picked the shards from his palms. Eddy cried in between Brett's shoulder blades all throughout and she only said 'that's right, cry both your stupid out, little Chen' as she kissed the top of their heads, first Eddy, then Brett.</p><p>Eddy is definitely crying his stupid out right now, Brett knows how his anxiety tears through him, knows how he must be reliving a loop of all his violin fuck ups in his head, feels it in the hands at his back scrunching up his shirt with something like hatred. He cradles Eddy to his chest, soft and secure, grabs him hard by the back of his neck and pulls, to make him come up for air.</p><p>'That's enough, Eddy, it's enough. Hey.'</p><p>His face is blotchy, nose running, clogged up at the same time, slimy and kind of disgusting. This is <em>his</em> to see and right, ok, Brett can admit he's been a bit of an asshole to doubt this privilege. He'd still give it up in a heartbeat to take away all the tears stuck in Eddy's eyelashes, all his insecurities and fears. It's then that his dumbass friend grabs him by the sleeve of his hoodie and uses it to wipe the snot off, to hide his face. He tries to talk through broken breathing, muffled in the material, sounds bubbly and wet and half gross.</p><p>'What the fuck man, I've been playing for more than ten years, what the actual fuck.' He laughs and it sounds hysterical, his face crumpling back into bottomless misery a second later.</p><p>He has to stop after, Brett sees more tears spilling over the top of his own wrist, feels Eddy squeezing his forearm harder, feels him shaking with self deprecation. Eddy likes to dig into his wounds, likes to pick at the scabs, because this isn't new, he isn't crying over this one moment. It's been building ever since he's entered uni and Brett has a hunch that for all his care and attention and petty jealously, Eddy might still have felt left behind, small, inadequate, not enough.</p><p>Instinctively, Brett wants Eddy to crawl right inside his chest so he can see for himself how important and cherished and capable he is. Nice words don't hold much weight between them anyway.</p><p>He slips his free arm under Eddy's shoulders, pushes him to a sitting position, gets up to throw the paper towel roll from the kitchen at his head. He finds Eddy's violin case by the door and Eddy half slumped over the tissues when he returns, violin in hand. Brett smacks him on the shoulder with the bow, feels like shit when Eddy looks up with so much hurt on his face because he already knows what must follow.</p><p>'Yeah, that's right, snot man. I didn't give you the roll so you can hug it, wipe yourself off. Play your piece for me, come on.'</p><p>And of course Eddy only cries harder at that. It takes another ten minutes to get him dry enough to even touch his instrument, he keeps wiggling out of Brett's reach, ends up kneeling on the floor. When Brett finally sits down in front of him and passes him his violin, both their hands are shaking.</p><p>It gets worse before it gets better. Kreutzer isn't easy on a good day, much less when Eddy barely sees the strings through the screen of tears, when his ears are half plugged with how much he's cried. It's all drowned in shaky bow and mistakes so after the third fake start Brett pushes harder, says 'No do overs anymore, you got your fucked run-through in the workshop. Did you practice for nothing?'</p><p>He watches Eddy's jaw tighten, it goes offensively out of tune for a good half minute before he leans his head down to his violin, scrunches his eyes shut, takes his first full inhale since he came through the door. His downbows on the chords become heavier and Brett wipes at some stray humidity before it hits the body of the violin.</p><p>And then time stretches, easy and pliant around the vibrations. Brett leans into it almost unconsciously, fights the pull of it enough to listen critically so he can give constructive feedback and not just vomit a mush of heart-shaped compliments. It's not the type of piece that Eddy usually likes, but Brett's stomach does some particular flippy manoeuvres at this newfound crisp, accurate sound.</p><p>It takes a while to come off it when it's over and he jolts involuntarily when Eddy tips off, forehead pressed against Brett's knee, violin cradled to his chest. There's exhaustion in the line of his shoulders but he's steady and dry. When he speaks, his voice comes out rough, still a bit wet. 'Oh my god, I can't believe you did that. Who makes a crying person play through what they had just screwed up? Good thing you didn't go to med school, hey. Psycho.'</p><p>'Well you're not crying anymore, are you.'</p><p>'It doesn't count anyway, you don't make me nervous.'</p><p>'Do I take it that I should come and babysit you on all your performances?' and it's not that Brett can't relate. He isn't instantly comforted when Eddy is in the audience either, but it is harder to get genuinely anxious when he has something to fixate on.</p><p>Eddy stands to put away his violin, trips over himself in the dark room, calls out from the hallway 'you think you're so subtle, bro, but I noticed your thing with Alex.' He pokes his head back in, wiggles his eyebrows, and Brett thinks <em>oh no</em> with a dread he wasn't expecting. 'Just ask if you want him as your accompanists, it's not like he's only my friend.'</p><p>Against his best efforts, Brett lets out a sort of disbelieving squeak, cut short before it becomes even more suspicious, says 'stay overnight' to cover it up. He's halfway between offended and relieved that Eddy's self awareness goes to recognizing jealousy, but not the direction of it.</p><p>They skip dinner because Eddy's head is understandably on the verge of splitting open, he grabs clean pj's right out of Brett's closet without asking and they go to bed the way they always do, back to back, his feet in the space behind Eddy's bent knees. It's later that he hears soft sniffles, mild and muted, and then 'sorry, I can't just stop, but it's better now, please don't worry'.</p><p>'You know you have to do something about it. I'll do what I can, but it isn't good for that already empty brain you have.'</p><p>Eddy rolls all the way over him, starfish spread on his back, squishes him face first into the bed, laughing evilly. The air leaves his lungs alarmingly quickly and it isn't fair, they both know he hadn't been able to move Eddy off him since he was seventeen. He digs his elbows into what he can reach, almost misses the cagey 'it's harder for me to be scared when you're watching' whispered in one breath, among completely manly giggles. Brett is starting to understand why Eddy was his mum's favorite when they were younger.</p><p>They fall asleep on opposite sides of the bed, Brett folded defensively towards Eddy, as far as possible without moving to the floor. In the morning, he doesn't remember dreaming of his friend literally opening his rib cage and crawling inside, all warm and painless, doesn't remember wanting to keep him. Because, isn't that a weird fucking thought?</p><p>It occurs to him, much later, years later, that it might not have been friend jealousy. It's entirely overdue, with the way Eddy's heated mouth presses to Brett's inner thigh.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Right so, this episode, this minute? https://youtu.be/S1g5mxgvReQ?t=827 And then Eddy explaining his horror for shaky bow? It screamed at me until I wrote it down.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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